1. Field of the Invention
The present system relates generally to a computer-implemented psychological diagnosis, and more specifically it relates to a computer-implemented treatment, diagnostic and communications system for selecting and engaging with, and communicating about, troubling and/or traumatic psychological material.
2. Description of the Prior Art
For years therapists, doctors and others working with children and adults who had been through highly disturbing experiences have been trying to diagnose, treat and communicate with these individuals about the disturbing experiences. They have asked questions, both open-ended and specific, on the individual's feelings and experiences; those current, and those which led up to the current condition of disturbance or the condition of being unable to communicate about the experience, with largely unsuccessful results.
However, present theoretical hypotheses and clinical findings alike have shown that adults and children who have undergone highly disturbing experiences are not able to talk about them; sometimes, not even able to remember them. For this reason, questionnaires and other means to get data from these individuals through standard expressive language have been highly inadequate.
Protective mechanisms within the human psyche predictably take the memory of highly disturbing or traumatic experiences away; or, alternatively, freeze the psyche with the memory of the disturbing event in an intrusive “takeover” that floods the individual with the feelings and thoughts associated with the overwhelming past incident. Yet, in order for the therapist or fellow communicator to communicate with the troubled individual or access this data, the adult or child must be able to communicate the events of the disturbance, i.e., these incidents in this order. Further, in order for treatment of the incommunicative and/or disturbed state to be ameliorated, the individual needs to have access to “these incidents in this order”, i.e., exactly what happened. However, traditional therapeutic or communicative means have not worked, precisely because the psychic response to highly disturbing incidents, experienced or witnessed, is either to (a) shut down (no memory, thus no ability to “tell about”) or (b) flood the individual with the terrible feeling(s) surrounding a single, frozen in-time, very small part of the disturbing event (no ability to access the “before” the incident and the “after” the incident, thus no ability to access and “tell”).
A diagnostic and treatment tool for children in the prior art has been the sand-tray (known also as “sandbox”, “sand play”, “sandplay”, “play and water activity table”, “play therapy mat for projective doll play” “therapy play stage”, “doll house”, but to be called “sand tray” here) and male and female adult and child dolls fitted with clothing that can be applied and removed.
The main problems with conventional treatment and diagnosis protocols linked with the “sandbox”, “sand-play”, etc., are not only that they require full memory and expressive language capability such as oral interviews or elicited self-reports but also that they are not uniform, universal, precise indicators of a patient's/user's problems. They are often subjective, transient and not automatically entered into a data system which automatically calculates, tracks and times patient/user responses according to universal measures previously established.
What is needed is a system that promotes objective, unbiased interaction with patients to help understand, diagnose and treat traumatic and/or highly disturbing experiences. In these respects, the present psychological treatment and diagnostic system substantially departs from the conventional concepts and designs. It provides a system primarily developed for the purpose of accessing previously inaccessible data as described above, uniformly and precisely eliciting indicators of a patient's/user's problem and automatically entering them into a data system. The data system automatically calculates, tracks and times patient/user responses according to universal measures of disturbance and/or trauma previously established through best practices, and construct-approved statistical testing, and subsequently indicates a profile of the user/patient along a spectrum of disturbance and/or trauma.